Large quantities of hazardous metal-contaminated waste water and other liquids have been discharged in the environment without treatment. Current federal and state regulations limit the hazardous metal concentrations in waste water and are extremely severe and are frequently based on analytical detection limits. Most metals are present in the waste water at concentrations which can range from 10 to 4,000 parts per million. Under some current regulations, all hazardous metal concentrations in waste water are required to be less than 300 parts per billion and some to less than 20 parts per billion. The hazardous metals include cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese, selenium, as well as others. In addition, it is desirable to remove and fix all metals, some of which are currently considered to be nonhazardous, such as zinc. These hazardous metals, as well as nonhazardous metals, are frequently dissolved in waste water and, in order to remove them, it is necessary first to precipitate them. This is accomplished by any number of known technologies, for example, hydroxide precipitation, chemical oxidation, insoluble salt formation and the like. Metal hydroxide precipitation is perhaps the most common at the present time. While metal hydroxide precipitation is a widely known and extensively used method for removing metals from waters, the resulting slurry from metal hydroxide precipitation has been difficult to filter, and the filter cake is hazardous and will not pass regulatory tests for hazardous characteristics. It is highly desirable to provide for the removal of heavy metals from waste waters in which the dissolved metals are precipitated, the filter ability of the resulting slurry of precipitated metals is improved, and the hazardous metals are chemically fixed in the filter cake which is readily removable and which filter cake is nonhazardous and does not need to be disposed in a hazardous waste site.